


Acceptable Loss

by keysmash



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: 14valentines, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-09
Updated: 2010-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-07 03:26:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keysmash/pseuds/keysmash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And if she was prolonging her own existence in the process, what of it? She liked life on Earth, liked trying on new bodies and seeing all the things they could do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Acceptable Loss

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 14valentines. Uses the Lilith origin story from [False Keeper, Brother's Witness](http://latentfunction.livejournal.com/342853.html), although reading that isn't necessary to understand this. Spoilers through 422.

She heard what the Winchester boys were up to, trying to get out of Dean's deal.

She had them followed, of course, by Ruby and a few other demons, to make sure they were getting angry enough, desperate enough. Every time she heard about how Sam and Dean fought about Ruby but Sam kept seeing her anyway, or how he was willing to sacrifice a real live virgin in the name of saving people, or how he'd run across a trickster and gone more than a little crazy trying to get free, she smiled to herself. If they were running scared, then they were running just the way she wanted them: underthinking and overreacting.

She remembered her own deal, millennia ago, as something from another life — which, she supposed, it had been — and she knew that rabbity sense of panic would only get worse for both of them. They'd move from threats to bargaining soon, and then to begging, and then to outright violence. Maybe Sam wouldn't get there until after Dean died, but he could take his time with it, so long as the anger kept growing. It'd take a lot for one of them to kill the pretty blonde things she liked to inhabit, looking so much like their poor dead mother. She knew she could make it easier on them, pick the body of a pedophile or someone else they wouldn't mind killing, but she thought they should be as angry as possible. They'd each break faster that way, and they both did need to break.

And if she was prolonging her own existence in the process, what of it? She liked life on Earth, liked trying on new bodies and seeing all the things they could do. She'd even acquired a taste for Hell. So few demons did, but she appreciated the chaos, and the clear sense of superiority she felt there. She'd come so far from where those souls were now, so far from the experience of any common demon, and she was willing to risk herself in Lucifer's service in order to enhance, to protect, that place she loved.

She'd died once already, after all, and had survived that. Every so often another religion came along that acted like life after death was some sort of accomplishment, some proof of divinity, but demons had been doing that for longer than any of these upstarts, and without any fanfare. You made a deal, and eventually you were reborn into sulphur and ash. No one escaped it. She would do it again, if she needed to.

Lilith expected Lucifer to bring her back, after she played the final seal, but he might not. Where was the wisdom in bringing back a strong lieutenant with her own followers, and an established base of power? She'd look like a risk to Lucifer, like someone too close to his own position, and she knew he might let her stay dead. War meant casualties, and since Lilith had already planned the ways she'd move against him, after he resurrected her, she would be a wise casualty for him to allow. She would take the risk and cooperate anyway, because the chance she would succeed was worth the gamble.


End file.
